{"id":540217,"date":"2021-05-25T15:50:48","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T19:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=540217"},"modified":"2021-05-25T15:50:49","modified_gmt":"2021-05-25T19:50:49","slug":"kristen-clarke-confirmed-as-civil-rights-chief-at-justice-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kristen-clarke-confirmed-as-civil-rights-chief-at-justice-department\/","title":{"rendered":"Kristen Clarke Confirmed as Civil Rights Chief at Justice Department"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fkristen-clarke-confirmed-as-civil-rights-chief-at-justice-department%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=540217&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1983.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Kristen Clarke as assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, capping a months-long nomination battle that was hotly contested.<\/p>\n<p>The final vote was 51-48<strong>,<\/strong> with Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine) joining Democrats to support Clarke\u2019s nomination. Democrats teed up the vote to coincide with the anniversary of George Floyd\u2019s death, touting Clarke\u2019s confirmation as a victory for their criminal justice agenda.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As we continue to pursue strong policing reform legislation, the fight for racial justice by confirming Kristen Clarke on the anniversary of George Floyd\u2019s murder is particularly poignant and appropriate,&#8221; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said on the floor before the confirmation vote.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans opposed Clarke\u2019s nomination, citing her anti-police rhetoric and ties to anti-Semites. The <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em> reported that Clarke <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/biden-administration\/biden-justice-department-pick-opposed-enforcing-civil-rights-laws-against-blacks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">opposed<\/a>&nbsp;civil rights prosecutions of black defendants, <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/courts\/biden-doj-nominee-conceals-ties-to-anti-semitic-professor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">concealed<\/a> ties to an anti-Semitic writer, and <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/biden-administration\/records-contradict-doj-nominees-testimony-on-controversial-conference\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">downplayed<\/a> her involvement with an academic conference that hailed cop-killers as political prisoners.<\/p>\n<p>As legislative gridlock on voting rights and criminal justice reform continues, Clarke\u2019s office will become the locus for the Biden administration\u2019s civil rights agenda. Even if legislative accomplishments prove elusive, the department can notch victories that will outlast the administration by entering reform agreements with police departments or prevailing in litigation.<\/p>\n<p>Upon assuming office, Clarke will confront a range of pressing issues. She will be a major player in identifying how the department will handle legal challenges to new voting procedures in red states enacted after the 2020 election. She will oversee pattern and practice investigations into police departments accused of serial misconduct. And she will help implement a 2020 Supreme Court decision on LGBT rights as it pertains to issues like women\u2019s sports, bathroom access policies, and conscience-based objections for religious dissenters.<\/p>\n<p>Clarke is one of a handful of political appointees confirmed for a Justice Department post since President Joe Biden took office. The president has yet to nominate someone to lead the department\u2019s antitrust division, an appointment closely watched for its implications for Silicon Valley and anti-competitive conglomerates. Nor has Biden named a solicitor general, the high-ranking department official who represents the government before the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>The principal deputy in the civil rights division is Pamela Karlan, the Stanford Law School professor who set off a short-lived controversy when she made a pun involving Barron Trump while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of the former president. Karlan, who led the division on an interim basis prior to Clarke\u2019s nomination, is a major figure in the voting and LGBT rights areas. Of late, she helped craft the legal strategy culminating in the Supreme Court\u2019s <em>Bostock<\/em> v. <em>Clayton County<\/em> decision, which extended anti-discrimination protections to LGBT workers. Karlan argued the case before the High Court.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SenSchumer\/status\/1397248998705139720\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Democrats<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/politics\/story\/2021-05-25\/kristen-clarke-justice-department-civil-rights\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">major media<\/a> cast Clarke\u2019s confirmation as historic, claiming she will be the first female minority to lead the civil rights division. Vanita Gupta, now the number three at the Justice Department, led the division for two years on an acting basis in the Obama administration. Clarke is the first female minority to fill the post after a Senate confirmation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Kristen Clarke as assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, capping a months-long nomination battle that was hotly contested. The final vote was 51-48, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2312994,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1983.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Kristen Clarke Confirmed as Civil Rights Chief at Justice Department","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-540217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1983.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Kristen Clarke Confirmed as Civil Rights Chief at Justice Department","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}